Word: pads
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...Even at the best of times, politics in Thailand rarely hew to the playbook of a mature democracy. But the current situation is quickly reaching that of political farce. Members of the PAD, who have been staging protests in Bangkok for months, are pushing for Samak's resignation and calling for a new, largely appointed parliament to take over governmental duties. The protesters accuse Samak, whose party won a national vote last December, of being nothing more than a proxy for former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a bloodless army coup in 2006 and now faces corruption...
Golf clubs aren't the usual accouterments of anti-government protestors, but the demonstrations gripping Bangkok this week haven't exactly been normal. For three days now, thousands of members of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) have occupied Thailand?s halls of power, camping out near the offices of Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej. In the early morning hours of Aug. 29th, protestors - some armed with bamboo poles, others with sporting gear more often associated with the Scottish highlands - managed to evict hundreds of police offers from the grounds of Government House. After celebrating their victory, the demonstrators snoozed...
...PAD is led by a motley crew that includes a retired army general, a media mogul and a labor activist. In its previous incarnation back in 2006, the alliance organized anti-Thaksin rallies, which swelled to tens of thousands of people in the months before the military deposed the former Prime Minister in September. Back then, the PAD accused Thaksin of abuse of power and graft, even going so far as to imply that the billionaire tycoon showed disrespect to Thailand's monarch - an incendiary charge in a country where the King is deeply revered. Last December, after a period...
...when its forces massacred unarmed demonstrators in Bangkok. And the specter of another coup perennially hangs over a nation that has suffered multiple military takeovers over the past half-century. As evidence of the prevailing nervous mood, Thailand's benchmark stock index has plummeted nearly 25% since the PAD began its protest movement...
...their way back in. In a tacit acknowledgment that there's no easy solution to this stand-off, Samak, who has rejected the activists' calls to resign, ordered a royal event originally scheduled to take place at Government House the following day to be moved to another venue. Meanwhile, PAD protestors have set up washing lines and police have even trucked in portable toilets in an effort to keep the area clean. The grounds, though, have already been marred by piles of trash and the once-immaculate lawns have been scuffed up. The golf clubs won't be used...